Friday’s episode of the BBC series Natural World was titled a farm for the future — how a farmer’s daughter goes back to the farm and learns how people have reduced the oil input and maintained yield. She rounds up several interesting permaculture schemes and low-energy crop systems.
Here’s the lessons I picked up:
There are 23 days left to watch it… please do!
The local green group is having its AGM at our flat tomorrow, so I’ve put together a programme of youtube videos about transition towns and permaculture, lasting an hour. We’ll mix and match depending on the group that turns up; perhaps you’re interested in the clips…
Rob Hopkins kicks off with an introduction about climate change, peak oil, transition towns, and the Kinsale Energy Descent Plan.
When Hopkins came up with the energy descent plan, he was teaching a 2-year permaculture design course at Kinsale, so here’s Bill Mollison’s quick definition of permaculture. Nice pics of spiders, too.
Cuba lost its cheap oil imports when the Soviet Union collapsed, and this Special Period is an example of what could happen when oil becomes unobtainable. This is a samizdat clip from BBC’s Around the world in 80 gardens, so I’m not sure how long it’ll stay up.
More Australians in Eat the suburbs: Gardening for the end of the age of oil.
David Holmgren (another permaculture pioneer) talks about the endurance of suburbia.
In the previous two clips it’s a suburban context with large gardens. In the next clip and two links, we’re looking at a high-density urban context with communal ground that’s transformed by the community.
And finally, here’s talking heads from the first Scottish Transition Gathering in July 2008.
First time at the allotment this year on Sunday, and it was very cold. Too cold to dig (thankfully) but there were some signs of life: birdsong, and small shoots of the onions and garlic. Nothing from the broad beans yet.
Started to build a no-dig bed with the cardboard left over from presents. Took a full load on the bike…
Bike with trailer full of carboard
Cardboard left over from presents
… but that didn’t actually make a very large bed. Ironically, the evening after I did this, my partner decides to get rid of 2 square metres of cardboard, and today I notice that a local shop put a load of cardboard out for recycling.
First, the cardboard from family and friends; then a layer of manure from Gorgie City Farm; finally a liberal covering of leamould that the council drop in the Saughton Mains site. Now to wait for it to cook, and decide what I want to put in there.
Cardboard, manure and leafmould
The start of a no-dig bed
Seems that google’s indexed better and I’ve been bumped to the second page of results for “permaculture edinburgh”, which allows some better stuff up front.
Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, Scotland has recently had its national conference (Oct 2008). The 2007 conference report is on the website, so I expect there’ll be this year’s soon. That page has links to a map of 37 Community Gardens across Scotland, which includes Gorgie City Farm, Redhall, Bridgend, and the Thistle Community Wildlife Garden in Edinburgh.
I should get in touch with Gorgie City Farm Gardening services and get some hard and soft landscaping done in our front garden. Emma Burnett (ECBA) appears to work there as Garden Project Worker.
Bah! I can’t find an RSS feed for FEDAGA.
Pigs make great gardenerz — chowing down on nettles from the permaculture principle Flickr group.
Hey! WordPress 2.5!
Was at the Leith permaculture introductory session today. Lots of good stuff: a selection of permaculture books and magazines; watched three sections of Bill Mollison – Global Gardener (Urban) and saw interesting stuff about city garden in NYC and the designed houses in Village Homes, Davis, CA; shared and recieved some good vegan food; chatted with lots of people and promoted EdinburghLETS; learnt a bit about 12V electrics.
Bloke from Aberdeenshire with a mandolin played us Tatties and Herring. Fantastic song I’d not heard before, obviously from the Aberdeenshire region as it’s singing the praises of lads from the North over the lowlanders and English, and there are namechecks of a number of places throughout the North-East. Thread on mudcat.
More than I will ever want to know about phytosanitary conditions for potatoes.
12V electrics often used in Kitchen lighting. Maybe there’s scope for putting a lot of it into the kitchen — obviously it won’t be all of the room since there’ll be an electric oven and a washing machine.
Gets me thinking … when we redo the room, what else can we incorporate to make it more efficient? I’ve still got a soft spot for a heat exchanger under the sink but I would have to do rough calculations as the to heat energy that’s available first.
